China's health ministry Friday banned the sale of Nassariidae, a small mud snail species, that have reportedly caused people to faint and vomit after eating them.

The ministry said that after eating them, people could feel the snails' poisonous effects within five minutes to four hours.

The poison, which comes from tetrodotoxin, a toxin usually found in pufferfish, has no known antidote, Xinhua reported.

The snail mostly inhabits the southeastern coastal areas including those in Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces.

Giuseppe Mandara, whose mozzarella is sold by British supermarkets and UK-based online food suppliers, was also accused of producing batches contaminated with ceramic shards from a faulty machine.

The Telegraph reports investigators said his Mandara Group had received significant injections of cash from the Camorra mafia, the organized crime group based in Campania, the region where mozzarella is produced.

Police seized assets worth more than £78 million, including the company.

They said the 56 year-old, who once described himself as the “Armani of mozzarella”, had struck up a secret commercial relationship with the Casalesi clan of the Camorra in the 1980s after he ran into financial difficulties.

The clan is based in and around the town of Casal di Principe, at the heart of a region famous for its mozzarella, which is produced from the milk of domesticated buffalo.

Police said Mr Mandara, who was photographed chomping on a cigar as he was led away by officers, was arrested on suspicion of mafia association and endangering public health. They said two tons of the company’s mozzarella may have been contaminated with minute ceramic fragments from a broken machine.

The company was also accused of passing off ordinary provolone cheese as being of a more superior quality with false labelling. Following news of his arrest, Mr Mandara was expelled from the Consortium for the Promotion of Buffalo Mozzarella after an emergency meeting of its council, which described the allegations as “very serious.”

What appeared to be sewing needles were found in sandwiches served in business-class cabins on four Delta Air Lines flights to the U.S. from Amsterdam on Sunday, the airline confirmed.

The Wall Street Journal reports a passenger on one of the flights was injured but declined medical treatment from paramedics after the plane landed in Minneapolis, Delta said.

The airline said it requires all of its caterers "to adhere to strict criteria in order to offer our customers the very best onboard meals. The safety and security of our passengers and crew is Delta's No. 1 priority."

 I don’t golf anymore because I sorta like my wife.

But for years Chapman was called Sweat Tea.

Not by me, but government types, who have this predilection to come up with nicknames for everyone, like it matters.

The name came from a golf trip to Virginia about 10 years ago. Being a northerner and not yet fluent in Virginiaisms, Chapman was sorta baffled when a server at Golden Corral – an annual meal imposed by the golf trip organizer – asked if he wanted his tea sweet or unsweet.

Chapman said, what?

This went on for a few minutes until he finally figured out the difference between sweet tea and unsweetened ice tea. He only knew about Red Rose.

Better than the patrons at a Dallas-area restaurant who in April 2010, suffered acute-onset dizziness and fainting resulting from low blood pressure within minutes of consuming food from the restaurant and were consistent with chemical poisoning.

Toxicologic and epidemiologic investigations were begun to determine the cause of the poisonings and identify potentially exposed persons. This report summarizes the results of those investigations, including a case-control study that identified iced tea as the likely contaminated food or drink (odds ratio [OR] = 65; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.4–3,292). Approximately 5 months after the incident, extensive laboratory testing identified sodium azide (NaN3) and hydrazoic acid (formed when sodium azide contacts water) as the toxic agents in the iced tea. All five ill restaurant patrons recovered from their symptoms. For rapid-onset foodborne illnesses, chemical poisons should be considered as a potential cause, regardless of negative initial toxicologic screening tests. Although unusual chemicals can be challenging to detect, a multidisciplinary approach involving public health officials and forensic and medical toxicologists can lead to appropriate testing. In the absence of an identified agent, epidemiologic tools are valuable for active case-finding and confirming suspected contaminated food vehicles.

The complete sweet tea report is available at
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6125a1.htm?s_cid=mm6125a1_e.